A research team from China has conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of land surface process changes associated with solar PV systems.
“The key questions addressed in this systematic review are: (1) Which climate variables are affected by land surface process alterations caused by PV systems, and are these changes significant? (2) At what scales do these alterations occur, and what mechanisms underlie them? (3) What future research directions emerge from existing studies?” the authors stated.
The review began with 4,909 publications related to PV systems and land surface processes. After removing reviews, reports, non-English papers, and studies lacking direct comparisons between PV and non-PV climate conditions, the researchers screened 90 full-text articles. An additional 30 studies were identified from reference lists, alongside 27 newly published and widely cited studies. The final dataset comprised 147 studies.
These studies covered 609 operational PV systems worldwide and used three main methodologies: field observations, remote sensing, and numerical simulations.
For the meta-analysis, the team evaluated 11 climate variables: daily, daytime, and nighttime air temperature; wind speed; relative humidity; albedo; daily, daytime, and nighttime land surface temperature; soil temperature; and soil water content.
“A clear geographic bias was observed, with 93.6% of PV systems located in the Northern Hemisphere,” the researchers noted. “China (316 systems), the United States (104), and India (44) account for the largest shares.”
In terms of land cover, most studied PV systems were located on grassland (208 systems), followed by bare land (173) and cropland (159). Arid regions dominated the sample, with 27.3% and 31.7% of systems located in BS (semi-arid steppe) and BW (arid desert) climate zones, respectively.
For temperature-related variables, the authors used mean difference (MD) to quantify absolute changes between PV and non-PV sites. For wind speed, relative humidity, albedo, and soil water content, they applied the ratio of means (ROM) to assess percentage changes.
Overall, PV systems were associated with small, non-significant increases in daily air temperature (+0.03 C), daytime air temperature (+0.34 C), nighttime air temperature (+0.18 C), and relative humidity (+1.77%).
In contrast, several significant effects were observed, including a reduction in wind speed (−29.96%) and albedo (−17.49%), as well as decreases in daily land surface temperature (−0.44°C), daytime land surface temperature (−0.90 C), and soil temperature (−2.42 C), alongside a substantial increase in soil water content (+38.60%). Nighttime land surface temperature showed a slight, non-significant decline (−0.08 C).
Based on the findings, the team proposed an integrated framework to assess PV-induced land surface process changes. “Its core structure consists of five modules: underlying surface, research method, climate variable, land surface process, and research scale,” they explained.
They added that the framework is intended to support stakeholders including researchers, PV technology developers, environmental impact assessors, site planners, energy agencies, manufacturers, and other industry participants.
Their results have been presented in “Land surface process alterations caused by solar photovoltaic systems: A systematic review and future framework from global evidence,” published in Geography and Sustainability. Researchers from China’s Beijing Normal University and Tianjin University have participated in the research.
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